art, precision and cooking, this activity allowed us to discover another form of art - this time related to animals and objects, instead of characters and flowers. The art of sugar painting has more than 400 years of history, first created in the Sichuan province during the Ming dynasty. The art was previously used for religious purposes such as rituals, but is now enjoyed by everybody, being produced in the streets, markets and parks. Sugar painting doesn't require many tools: sugar, heat, a small wok, a copper spoon and some wooden sticks.
If you follow the rules correctly, you should manage to draw an animal or an object after just one or two attempts. The zodiac animals are always the most popular designs, especially the dragon, which is more challenging, but looks very impressive. Here is how the process works: first, you draw your design on a marble or metal surface and then insert a wood stick to hold it, and then after, remove your drawing from the surface using a kind of spatula. As some people are more skilled than others with their hands, everyone's animal came out looking distinct and unique! After, we tried to eat our creations. If we weren't pleased with our paintings, we could just melt them in the wok and try again. We discovered through trial and error that the art was easier than it looked at first glance. We were amazed when the master created a beautiful sugar painting of a dragon but it didn't discourage us so we kept trying until we got great results as you can see in the following pictures:
